Recently in House of Commons Category

Of the many, many interviews done by those on both sides of the pension strikes dispute, the comments made by Michael Gove, the education secretary, on Five Live's Drive show stood out for me. He urged listeners - and union members - to question the motives of union leaders for pushing for strikes so very quickly. He singled out Len McCluskey, the top dog at Unite and the main agitator behind the British Airways cabin crew strike last year, Mark Serwotka of the PCS union and Dave Prentis, boss of Unison and arguably the wettest, dullest, most unconvincing, non-rabble rousing union leader ever to exist. Gove's basic argument was that the motives behind the strike for the likes of those listed above was more political than it was for the best interests of members. Union leaders will be quick to point that this could be construed as a classic divide-and-conquer tactic on the part of Gove. United we stand, divided we fall and all that. And yet, and yet - Does he have a point? In fact, he may even have hit upon two points - whether unions are doing their members a dis-service by going one in, all in, and also whether ideological differences between the unions and the government are clouding the unions' collective judgement.

ED Miliband has been in improving form of late at PMQs, in my opinion. David Cameron, in contrast, seems to be struggling when walking the fine line between quick-witted reply and flash posh boy. In opposition, that didn't so much - in charge of a government which is making lots of cuts, it's a different story.

But I'm not going to blog here about the part of PMQs which much more knowledgeable people than me analysise each week - the battle between the PM and the opposition leader.

No, instead lets talk about Dennis Skinner. Really. He stood up in the Commons and unleashed one of his usual ultra left-wing rants against the Tories.

The general theme of his rant was this: The number of billionaires in the UK has gone up by 20 in the last 12 months, up 30-something percent. This is because, said Skinner, the Tories are in charge. At the same time, inflation is hurting everyone else, and we have blind people taking to the streets in protest at losing disability living allowance. In other words: Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Mr Tory?

There was much cheering and jeering at Skinner's remarks. He is, of course, a left-wing institution in his own right. But in this context, he's also very damaging to Labour - or indeed any faction trying to oppose the government's spendng plans.

The rise in billionaires is utterly irrelevant to the rise in inflation, and the rise in inflation is also unconnected to the disability living allowance. Stitch them together and you have a good speech, but nothing based in fact.

Cameron was able to dismiss Skinner easily - pointing to the new lower unemployment figures and suggesting that Skinner lives in 'dinosaurland.'

And it's a small skip for the Tories to paint all opponents to spending cuts as being like Skinner. It's a bit like letting the genie out of the bottle. Here's the looney left, not living in the real world and so on.

The Tories, on the other hand, have so far managed to keep most of their right-wing genies locked up, to mix some metaphors. Labour would dearly love for them to be unleashed - here are the 'real' Tories and so on - but it's not happening.

Miliband, as I said at the start, has improved massively his ability to take on Cameron - and win - at PMQs. He needs to get to work on his backbenchers now. Skinner might be a legend, but he's also a liability to a leader who has yet to work out what the party's real message on cuts is.

And so the horses are in the starting blocks ahead of the political battle I suspect most of the country couldn't care less about. The vote on how we should vote in the future. I learnt while covering the Regional Assembly debate in the North East that a political debate John Prescott is vocal in is generally one which the public don't give a monkey's about.

Prescott, now Lord Prescott, is placing himself in the 'no to AV' camp, aligning himself with the Tory camp, led by prime minister David Cameron. Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is becoming the posterboy for the yes vote, joined by Labour lights such as Lord Mandelson and Ed Miliband.

Tories on one side, Lib Dems on the other, Labour flip-flopping inbetween. Have Labour and Lib Dems had a personality swap?

The problem with debates such as this is that they expose the huge gulf in priorities between those who work in the Westminster bubble and the rest of us. Tens of thousands of words will be written between now and the summer on the AV debate, but there's little to show that anyone other than the already-politically active actually cares.

One of the over-riding grumbles from Parliament last week was that if Vince Cable was a Tory, he'd have been kicked out by now.

Probably true - but that perhaps says more about this current crop of Tory ministers than it says about Cable, a man who seems to be the Pied Piper of the left-leaning element of his party in a way no other is.

Can any Tory minister currently lay claim to have such a role with a faction of the Conservative Party? And even if they did, would any faction of the Tories really want to rock the boat when things, through blue-tinted glasses, appear to be going so well?

In November 2003, a 12-year-old girl called Amy Houston died after being hit by a car driven by a failed asylum seeker called Aso Mohammed Ibrahim.

Ibrahim ran away from the scene, in Blackburn, leaving Amy to die under the vehicle. Since that dreadful night, it appears the powers that be have conspired against Amy's father, Paul Houston, in his quest for justice.

First off, there was the sentence Ibrahim received. Ibrahim, who was disqualified from driving, was given a four-month jail term for driving without insurance and while disqualified and failing to stop after an accident.

It was a sentence which angered many, and Paul embarked on a campaign for 'Amy's Law' which sought tougher sentences for those who drove while disqualified - the theory being that you're disqualified for a reason so if you drive and hurt or kill someone, you've done so in the knowledge you weren't fit to drive. It was a campaign the newspaper in Blackburn which I worked for at the time got behind. I got to know Paul well during that time.

In David Cameron's vision of a Big Society, we can all make a difference. We can all help make the decisions which will make Britain a better place.

Nice idea, great ideal - it's just a shame that actions speak louder than words, and a temporary return to the limelight for Lord Ashcroft this week proved that when it comes to making a difference, money still talks.

Little has been said of Lord Ashcroft since the election. His millions pumped into marginal constituencies across the country didn't deliver the desired result - and in the end it was Nick Clegg's desperation for a sniff of power which took Cameron into Number 10, not pricey postal orders from Belize.

Quite why Lord Ashcroft's work with the marginal constituencies didn't work is a mystery, although I suspect it might have something to do with the evasive way the Tories dealt with questions about the Lord's non-dom status. After all, a man who only pays tax on part of his income in the UK playing a central role in a general election campaign is always going to cause a stink.

SO, who believes in Big Society now? Or perhaps the question should be: Who understands what the Big Society is?

David Cameron's speech in Liverpool on Monday was certainly evangelical - but will anyone respond?

The unions did - they called it the Big Cop Out. They smell a rat, unsurprisingly, and it doesn't take a genus (although the unions will probably consider that's what needed, along with several health and safety officers for a pre-genius assessment) to work out that jobs may go as a result.

But as a result of what? The message at the moment appears to be little more than encouragement for people to come forward snd say they'd like to run as a volunteer group. If there is a hitlist of services the government says it wants run by the voluntary sector, then it's not been made public yet.

And who is going to volunteer to do something such as cleaning the streets, or delivering meals on wheels for the council for as long as the public sector offers the service?

I'm sure I wasn't alone in not understanding David Cameron's obsession with the 'big society' ahead of the general election.

At a time when Cameron was clearly struggling to get his points around the economy across, his half-painted images of how society could work better seemed to just got lost on the public and confused voters.

And I suspect it got lost on some of his closest circle of ministers too. After all, why would health secretary Andrew Lansley have a go at one of the few celebrities who was being 'big society' before it got its catchy name in a focus group somewhere.

There was a rumour shortly after the general election that Jeremy Hunt, who had been the shadow culture minister, was in line for a much bigger job in government.

Some touted him as the new home secretary, ousting the obvious candidate Chris Grayling, whose open-mouth-and-let-everything-fall-out style of conversation ultimately cost him that job.

Others suggested he'd go straight in at the Treasury, replacing George Osborne, who, some said, had upset David Cameron by devising an election strategy which resulted in the Lib Dems climbing into the Number 10 bed.

Neither proved to be true - if either were likely, I suspect it would have been the first scenario, not the latter.

And he certainly shares a trait which seems to have been essential for the Home Office in the past - the ability to put in mouth.

In the rush to liken the current Tory administration to the dark days of Margaret Thatcher at every opportunity, Labour didn't take long to liken Iain Duncan-Smith's news plans to a famous speech by Lord Tebbit.

Lord Tebbit's 'on your bike' speech in the early 80s is among the famous speeches regularly dragged out by Labour to demonstrate how mean and evil the old Tories were. And they're right, Lord Tebbit was on a different planet.

But to liken Duncan-Smith's plan - which would involve given people who moved to get a job priority on housing waiting lists - to the attitude of Lord Tebbit is very unfair, and also misses the opportunity to provide real opposition.